


Meeting Hel

by isangelousfantasies



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M, unlikely to be completed I'm sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-07
Updated: 2012-06-07
Packaged: 2017-11-07 04:34:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/426958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isangelousfantasies/pseuds/isangelousfantasies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because Tony's reckless, Loki's hopelessly in love, and Hel just wants her father to be happy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meeting Hel

**Author's Note:**

> ... first and foremost, I have to apologize for any mistakes that might be present. This story was written mostly between the hours of 2-5AM, and hasn't been checked over-- mostly because none of my friends in real life like The Avengers, or Marvel things in general-- so I'm pretty much praying that there aren't any mistakes. Or plot holes, because all of those are a bit not good. If you notice anything wrong with the grammar/if there are plot holes in the story, feel free to drop me a comment and I'll try to have it changed ASAP.
> 
> With that having been said, please enjoy! :)

 

He is so, _so stupid_. 

Tony Stark—Iron Man, billionaire, genius, playboy, philanthropist—is not so much of a genius as he and the magazine proclaims him to be. At least he’s definitely not in Loki’s eyes, because if he truly were a genius he wouldn’t have wound himself up in such a stupid, foolish, _terrible_ mess. 

But there he is, anyway, lying there motionlessly with his numerous wounds and those nasty gashes across his chest. The arc reactor looks damaged, but Loki knows that it’s not broken because the blue light is still shining out of it and therefore, Tony is (maybe possibly dare he even hope for so much?) still alive and might even make a full recovery despite these horrible injuries of his. Not if he stays in that state for much longer, though. He’s going to die soon if no-one gets to him, and by that time the state of the arc reactor will no longer matter. There’s blood pooling around him. It’s gathering around him at an alarming speed, mostly because there shouldn’t ever be so much blood spilled by one singular person, and he’s quite clearly unconscious and oh god, he doesn’t know what to do. 

He’s always known that this day would come. He just… he just didn’t expect it to come so soon, for it to be so sudden, so unexpected, so _painful_. Because it bloody hurts to even think about Tony dead, because Loki loves him far too much and this is just terrible full stop. He had imagined that maybe he would have the lifespan of a normal Midgardian human male to spend with Tony, or maybe at least a few more years, where Tony would undoubtedly fall victim to either one of his bad habits (binge drinking, not eating for days, apparently everything that was common in Midgardian genii so it was considered generally okay). Because it’s just _not fair_ for Odin or anyone else who’s orchestrating this entire mess to steal Tony away from Loki just like that, just when he’s found happiness and it’s _not fair_. Because Tony wasn’t supposed to meet his daughter until sometime next week, and he’s not going to let Hel take Tony away from him. Not now.

Because, fuck it, this isn’t actually happening. He doesn’t want it to be happening, not now, not ever. Loki focuses all his energy into healing Tony, but the wounds are too extensive to be properly treated just like that and he’d never thought that he’d say this but he needs help, help to keep his love alive and pride be damned if it could keep Tony alive. Tony needs some medical attention but everyone’s too busy fighting some freaky monster-thing that decided to just chew Tony up and spit him out even though he wasn’t much of a threat anyway. What had Tony been thinking, anyway? Jumping into a battle like that without his suit had obviously been a very, very stupid idea, and because of that stupid idea Tony’s going to die now and there’s no way, absolutely no way that he’ll let that happen.

There is, however, really nothing that he can do to stop it. So he just heals Tony to the best of his ability till Tony just stops breathing altogether and no pulse can be felt anymore. Loki dies a little inside when this happens, but he doesn’t stop, because he knows that there’s a Midgardian technique called Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation that can reawaken someone who’s just died and so he still has hope, he needs to work harder, he needs to save Tony, can’t let Tony die, _1-2-3-4-5, 1-2-3-4-10, no Tony you will not die you will not die Tony, Tony, **Tony!**_

Thankfully, Loki’s hard work pays off and Tony resumes breathing, which is a relief. And so Loki resumes his healing, even though his magical reserves are running desperately low and he’s pretty sure that the Black Widow has called for an ambulance and the monster’s been defeated and he’s getting awfully tired but he has to keep going, has to ensure that Tony’s chances of survival are the highest that they can be, that he doesn’t have to live without Tony even though it sounds selfish and that nothing untoward happens. So when the ambulances come, he stubbornly insists on helping Tony all that he can before he leaves him in the hands of the (possibly very incompetent, judging by what Tony hollers at them all the time) hospital staff, places Tony on the stretcher himself, pushes him into the ambulance and it is only when the wailing ambulances leave that he finally allows himself a moment to break down, to release all those bottled emotions that have been mixing like a volatile Molotov cocktail inside that’s going to explode any minute. Thor’s at his side now, comforting his brother and being kind like it’s in Thor’s nature to be. For once, Loki allows him to coddle him and hug him (crush him, more like) and be the loving and there-for-him brother that he’s always wanted to be but somehow always had some trouble being. Although it can’t really be called ‘allowing’, because Loki’s much too emotionally drained to register anything that’s going on in his surroundings anymore. The only things that Loki can actually recognize are the huge pool of Tony’s blood on the floor, the getting-softer-by-the-minute wailing of the ambulances, and the knowledge that Tony might never wake up again. He’s actually really frightened of the last thing, because he’s not sure how he’d survive without Tony and he wishes that he’d been in Tony's position instead so that he would be the one who was injured and he wouldn’t have to face the harsh possibility of having to live without Tony by his side. 

_please father please save Tony I can’t live without him please don’t take him away from me please_

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

In all honesty, Tony doesn’t quite understand what’s happened. One moment he’s rescuing innocent civilians from some fat-ass, huge, ugly thing, and the next minute he’s lying half-dead on the ground. And now he’s in a somewhat two-dimensional room that’s obviously been bleached white because it’s unnaturally so, and it’s boring because there’s no JARVIS inside and no internet connection at all; nothing, in fact, except for a single two-dimensional chair/table set that he finds himself able to sit on (the chair, that is). He wonders for a moment if he’s two-dimensional, too, but upon examining his body, he finds that he’s still perfectly three-dimensional and it’s amazing how he’s still alive with all these hideous wounds over his body. But perhaps he isn’t, either; perhaps he’s just in some odd and twisted version of Limbo where there is nothing but boringness so that people are actually convinced to head to their deaths and whatever waits for them there due to the boredom. Or maybe he is dead, and this is what death’s like: emptiness in a two-dimensional, white room that doesn’t have an internet connection. There’s no wonder as to why people don’t want to die, then. It’s so _boring_.

The latter scenario is almost immediately crossed out, though, because as soon as he touches the table, he’s pulled into various memories of his life. It’s as if someone’s stuck video cameras into his head and recorded his entire life without him actually being aware of it. The better memories come first, and it’s also because he knows to seek them before the bad ones launch a secret ambush attack on him. The memories are good. The first ones are those of him having fun, gambling, drinking, being at MIT, building his first engine, making his father proud, the pre-Iron Man, pre-Avengers days where the only things that mattered were where the best parties were held and whether he was invited (heck, he was always invited. He used to be the Merchant of Death!). The times he spent with Pepper, laughing about her ex-boyfriends and giving her wardrobe extreme makeovers with the copious amount of money that he has. The times he spent as Iron Man, rescuing people and making up for the lives that he’s taken with his weapons, defending the world against evil and all the glorious good memories and stuff. The times he spent as an Avenger, bullying Agent and hanging out with Bruce as Science Bros and laughing at the too-conservative Captain who thought that going on dates meant wearing his nice pants and going to fancy restaurants without sex (how quaint!). The memories about Loki, about surprise breakfasts that he finds in the kitchen, about JARVIS videotaping them having sex and saving it for Tony’s personal viewing pleasure, anything, _everything_. 

The bad memories, such as the memories of Obie and Yinsen (although that can’t really be considered as bad, just painful) and Howard Stark come soon enough, though, and he remembers his best friend basically ripping his heart out of his chest, of Yinsen sacrificing himself and ‘going to meet his family’, of how his father left him so many times just to search for Captain fucking America. Bad memories that he’d rather not think about, rather not revisit.

It comes as a relief when a female makes her way into the two-dimensional room, even though Tony’s not quite sure how she got in. Tony recognizes her. She’s Hel, Loki’s daughter. Ruler of hell, or whatever it’s called in Norse mythology—he can’t really remember, actually. Niflheim? 

“Hello,” she says, a slight smile on her face. “I didn’t think I would be meeting you so soon, Tony Stark.”

Neither did he, actually. Since he was meeting Hel, and this wasn’t exactly planned, did that mean that Tony’s dead? Because he’d really rather not be dead. Loki would go crazy; probably plot another war against Earth. There were still a few things on his bucket list that were uncompleted. 

“How do I get back?”

It comes across as kind of rude, but he figures that Hel won’t really care. If Loki was anything to go by, his daughter wouldn’t really care too much about beating about the bush, and it was probably the first question that she received whenever she appeared, anyway. Hopefully she doesn’t take offence.

“Father mourns you,” she says simply, showing him a glimpse of what’s happening in the real world/Earth/Midgard/whatever, he’s quite confused now. His body is on a hospital bed, hooked up to numerous wires and beeping heart-rate machines and thingies. Loki is sitting by his bedside. He looks terrified, frightened, and more vulnerable than Tony ever wanted him to be. So Tony repeats his question, a little more impatient this time and a lot more worried. Because he worries about Loki, and whether he’s going to do something stupid, and Loki’s his responsibility and his lover so he has to care. He’s the only one who’ll be able to take good care of Loki—Thor probably could, but Loki will reject any help from Thor anyway. “It’s quite easy to go back.”

Somehow, Tony can’t help but doubt that. It’s never that easy, and he knows that from experience. For some reason, gods and goddesses and whatever other deities there are up there in the heavens or Asgard or whatever always, and he means always like to make things much tougher than they really need to be. It’s like some… unspoken rule, or something, and it’s annoying as shit. And he’s pretty sure that Hel knows about that darned rule, too, which is why she has such a sadistic smirk on her face. Bloody deities who take pleasure in others’ suffering.

“So, how exactly do I get back?”

“It's actually really simple. All you have to do is walk through that door, and you're done. You'll be back, back in Midgard."

It sounds almost too good to be true, so Tony, being the suspicious person he is, can't help but question it. Obviously there has to be some sort of catch to it. Otherwise, he wouldn't even have wound up in this horrid, two-dimensional room in the first place.

"And what's the catch?" to be honest, he doesn't really mean to sound so overly-suspicious and paranoid. Not in front of Loki's daughter, not in front of anybody—but especially Loki's daughter, because he wants to leave a good impression on her and that would be quite hard with a bad first impression. He's found that first impressions are disturbingly important and it took him an age to get over his first impression of Steve.

His first impression of Loki was that he was ridiculously good-looking, and that hadn't changed, even now. Except that now he could add plenty more adjective to that, and could describe in near-painful detail certain parts of his anatomy.

"The catch? There's no catch, really, except that if you go back, there's a 70% chance that you'll be paralysed from the neck-down. And a 15% chance that you'll be fully paralyzed, and a 5% chance that you'll die when you return. Right now, you're in what Midgardians call a ‘coma’, and it seems pretty severe. And I think that both you and Father might enjoy you just staying in this coma better.

"Also, there are two doors there—yeah, those two. You can't really tell which one is leading to where, but one of them leads to Midgard and the other leads to Niflheim. Neither of them lead to Valhalla, which is where the people who have died heroic deaths go. That's the... better place to wind up. Niflheim isn't the best place to wind up in."

Tony's not really too surprised. It's more of a 'Merchant of Death, what's been done cannot be undone' kind of thing and he knows that he's most certainly killed more people (albeit accidentally) than he's saved, and even if he had saved enough people to cancel out the huge number of people he's killed with his weapons, it's not enough to make up for the loss and suffering that their families must have experienced. He's not much of a hero.

"So, it's a fifty-fifty chance that I even make it to Earth? How's that simple?"

"It's simple enough to me. Just pick a door! You'll have to decide, see. To decide if your Midgardian life, your friends, if Father's enough of a risk to go back, and possibly be a vegetable or end up in Niflheim. And then there's that door," she points to a single door at the opposite end of the room, "which leads to Valhalla. But if you walk through that door, there's absolutely no chance that you'll go back to Midgard."

Fuck. Well, isn't that a wonderful game? Luck? Chance? He doesn't like putting his fate into such fickle and unpredictable hands, thankyouverymuch. Niflheim is supposed to be quite a terrible place, and Valhalla sounds much better. But then again, any place would be terrible to be in without Loki.

Problem is, Loki wouldn't be able to follow him into Niflheim, anyway. He knows because Loki always complains about not being able to visit his daughter in Niflheim as and when he pleases, and how he has to do all sorts of rubbish and borrow his son from Odin (for reasons not understood at all. Why would Loki have to borrow his own son?) so that he could travel down there to talk to his daughter. It's all very troublesome, he says.

Of course, in the end he always just smiles contentedly and tells Tony that it's all been worth it, because he loves all his children to bits (he's a wonderful father, really) and he treasures every moment that he can spend with them despite Odin having taken them away from him. Tony finds it rather adorable when he does that.

When he finishes his little trip to the mind-palace, he realizes that Hel has left and he didn't even get a chance to see which door she left from. That would probably have been the door to Niflheim, and if he had been in his workshop or even Stark Tower he would have asked JARVIS for a copy of the CCTV footage but he isn't in Stark Tower or even at home and therefore there's no JARVIS and he doesn't know what to do.

Fuck it all, he _doesn't know what to do_.


End file.
